Penny for the Workhouse

Livestock Festival Part 4

Penny for the Workhouse are all that is good with new music.  Deliciously quirky, wonderfully witty with a style of music that somehow manages to capture the east end music hall and make it fresh.  

I'm a London girl, and our very own musical heritage seems to almost embarrass us, there is an appetite for the reworking of celtic folk songs something that the bad boys and girl of folk, Skinny Lister, do so well; sea shanties are fair game, but the east end of london with all its cockney swagger and good humour has as yet gone largely unreconstructed.  We need Penny for the Workhouse and their 'Rock & Roll with a dash of folk'

The band works brilliantly, the majority of the vocals taken by Mel and Nathan, but with all of the band; Jess, Tom and Sam I think, adding vocals at key moments like a delicious, cockney Greek chorus.  

I love The Ballard of Seamus Fink.  Who hasn't seen him propping up the bar in a hundred different pubs and Penny for the Workhouse gives him a voice. It's sad and clever and holy crap there's even an "OI".   It left me with the mother of all ear worms.  

Where was I?  Where was I?

And 'Old' is my kind of love song. 

A pigeon hole doesn't exist with their name on it and that's going to confuse a lot of people, but I am a Penny for the Workhouse fan, They are doing something different in a wonderfully roguish way.  

They look great, they sound great, they are funny and clever and jolly nice people too.

Find Penny for the Workhouse on 

twitter @the_workhouse

Facebook PennyForTheWorkhouse

Then sell your granny and get yourself to their next gig.  

We'll see you there.

A dance happy interlude

A criticism that has been levelled at this dance happy girl, is that I'm too nice about bands and music that I write about (with notable exception award going to Steve Strange RIP and Marti Pellow) but to say that would be to misunderstand the Dance Happy vibe.  And the clue, really is, in the title.

When Janie and I emerged blinking into the sunlight from the crazy 'early motherhood' years we wanted to remember who we were besides mummy.  A shared love of live music was the thing that initially gave us some time out and soon became a passion.

We played it safe for awhile, revisiting the bands of our misspent youth - 80s festivals, reunion tours etc and had a bloody good time.  

The blog was initially just our own record - we didn't publicise it in any way, it was just a way to look back and remember that we really did go out looking like that, and I did swap my hat for beers at a madness gig and that we were more than the sum of school gate and staff room small talk. 

And then, largely through twitter, we began discovering new bands.  Who knew?  Whilst I was learning Spanish with Dora and singing with Gymbo the clown, the rest of the world was still doing stuff: new, creative, fresh and exciting stuff.  We began listening to music that was sent to us and SOME of it we liked, a lot.  We started getting out to see some of these exciting new and heart breakingly young bands.  I kept writing in those small, dark, stolen times between work and being 'Mummy' but it was the publication of this research  You stop listening to new music at 33 that made us share the blog, initially amongst friends and family and then with the bands that we write about and more widely

But the blog is about music that makes us happy, good times, not being dead when you're older than 35.  We want to share the fantastic new bands that we find and hope that some of you like them too.  We want to shout out the bands that play for peanuts in sticky floored bars and fledging festivals and we want to feel good about doing it.

We do see bands that are frankly not good enough or are too generic, we saw plenty of 'MEH' at Livestock festival but we chose not to write about those.  Why would I want to piss on the bonfire of 20 year old dreams.  I would rather choose 3 or 4 that we thought were BRILLIANT and write with passion about those.  We want to share the music that we care about.

I write it as I see/hear it, so reviews are rarely entirely without criticism but it's just my own view.  

The thoughts of one utterly insignificant but very dance happy girl.  

Hunter and the Bear Grrrrrrr

Livestock Festival Continued

One look at Hunter and the Bear and I wanted to love them - it's a hair thing.  But this is a band greater than the sum of their swishy hair. I feel honour bound to mention at this point that for Janie it was the bushy beard that grabbed her attention.  But hey-ho needless to say, we were focused.

Hunter and the Bear, have that magical quality of being incredibly self assured without arrogance.  When the talent's turned up this high - you don't need to do the whole 'too cool for school' thing.  They were likeable, they drew us in. 

 I guess you would call what we heard contemporary folk/rock ish and if I were a gambling woman (see below) I would be willing to bet on who they've been compared to in recent years but that would be to do HATB an injustice - they're no carbon copy, they bring something extra to a non-genre genre, a unique quality. 

Do yourself a favour. CLICK HERE!

The musicainship is evident in every number, with a glorious clarity of vocals, the songs crafted to showcase every element of their combined talent.  

Set List

Burn It Up

Forest on The Hill

Tallies

On The Run

Hanging By A Thread

Shadow Man

The River (Bruce Springsteen Cover)

Pick Me Up

Blood Red Skies

Battle Scars

Like A Runaway

They didn't need a cover but The River was truly good.  Janie and I, when we're not at a gig, can often be found at the poker table and that is a featured song on the much coveted Dance Happy Poker Playlist.  It was a great choice - and they did it justice.

However,  my very favourite moment was when they unplugged and came down from the stage, a very bold move for a band at a festival, not assured of a secure loyal fan base.  It relies upon a disparate festival crowd being both courteous and curious enough to shut up for 5 minutes, but a group gathered around the band effectively blocking enough background noise to make the number viable, and this act of itself brought others to see what was going on.  

This was possibly my favourite moment of the entire Livestock festival.  The song was written in that bleak time of helplessness when a loved one is seriously ill and you feel utterly inadequate in every way.  As someone who is somewhat raw from my own sister's rediagnosis of cancer it reduced me to a puddle of mascara and snot.  The story of the last leaf is one that I heard as a child and has never left me, and their assurance to their friend 'I won't let the leaves outside your window hit the ground' was everything that I'd wanted to say but couldn't find the words.  

If this wasn't enough - they are thoroughly likeable off stage too, anyone who writes NAAA NA NA - NA NA NA NAAAAA (think about it) when signing my EP cover, is OK with me.

Hunter and The Bear are a class act.
Find them on Twitter  @HunterTheBear or  
Facebook Hunter & The Bear 
and grab yourself a bear hug from Will, Jimmy, Gareth and Chris.
You heard it here first!

Under A Banner

Something wicked this way comes.

It was undoubtedly the chance to see Under A  Banner perform live that fuelled our initial desire to go to The livestock Festival.  

They are an incredibly hard working, media savvy band.  Our paths had crossed on Twitter and Adam is incredibly 'on it' and loyal to those who show support for the band.  Their sound is fresh a folk, punk, rock fusion but very lyrics driven with subject matter that resonates.  They were without doubt one of my favourite finds of this year, and many a day has been improved by playing LEAVING HERE very loud indeed.

Find them here - you won't be sorry that you did

Did they deliver live?  Overwhelmingly yes, they are passionate and intense and gratifyingly ear ringingly loud (for which I thanked them at 3am)  These boys, and girl can definitely play - the sound quality was a bit 'first night new festival' standard but you can't hide power and passion.

Big thanks to Adam for sharing the set list, presumably written in his own fair hand.

However, my one disappointment was that they delivered the set like a heat seeking missile, one great number after another it must be said, but with little introduction or interaction and the price that we paid for this approach was that we didn't really get to know them.  

I do get it.  

It was a quiet night at Livestock and those that were around needed to be grabbed by the throat and kept there - I don't know if Adam would usually introduce the members of the band, or if together they are more than the sum of their parts, but I wanted to know them.  It may even have been an antidote to the somewhat 'just the right side of chaos' feel to backstage.  But it was on the verge of being maniacal until Adam introduced "Impossible Dave" and with that simple interaction proved himself to be incredibly likeable, which indeed he is.  It was the first time during the set, that he seemed to relax and allow us a glimpse of the man behind the music.  

But it was undeniably a great set.  The heart of Under a Banner was here, I love the insane energy of Network and rousingness, possibly not a word but should be, of Victory Time.  

I did miss the softer side of Under a Banner with the beautiful musicality of their acoustic numbers such as Another Time and Inseparable but so that anyone who was there does not miss out ….

I suggest that you sell your granny and get yourself t'Midlands to see them.  I  definitely want to see them again, I want to see them in a metaphorically  smokey bar filled to bursting with folk who get them.  I want to get hot and sweaty and hoarse with singing and dancing, and do I want to stay there and drink with them?

  Hell Yeah!  

Livestock Festival

Friday 31st July - 

Sunday 2nd August

We may well have been the only people to make the journey from London to Tewksbury for the inaugural Livestock Festival.  We were lured there by the opportunity to see some new bands that we have a social media relationship with; Under a Banner, Penny for the Workhouse, Prism and knew that we were guaranteed a good time from the three headliners The Feeling, Scouting for Girls and The Hoosiers. 


So, we booked a room in a pub, in a town, in the vicinity (Did I ever tell you the story of Janie threatening EXTREME violence to me, in a cold damp tent, at the dead of night at a festival?) and set off down the M4 in our festival car Delilah.  




We talked a taxi into taking us to the festival, largely by pretending that we were seriously into farming (it is a strange name for a music festival - was it to hoodwink the planning officers and local community?)  and on a glorious Friday evening we drove down into Manor farm, offsetting the taxi driver's grumbles about his chassis with the incredible view below us.



Manor Farm is a glorious site for a festival.  Lush and green and spacious, very, very, VERY spacious.  On Friday night the festival was quiet in a way that only Bjork truly understands. 

However, it had obvious potential.  There were places to eat, a large bar (crowd free) and a main stage that was covered; small but perfectly formed.  Hay bales provided the perfect spot to hang out and drink a cocktail, YES A COCKTAIL or two.  It was like seeing a festival ultrascan, undeniably a perfectly formed festival but somewhat embryonic, with a few grey areas.

The Friday night bands were really playing the graveyard shift, although the crowd, such as it was, flocked to The Feeling at 10pm  and the atmosphere in the mosh pit was amazing!  I certainly left with ringing ears and throbbing feet and a warm fuzzy feeling towards livestock.  The blue moon hanging high above the Livestock sign added to the romance of the whole occasion.

Saturday had an entirely different feel, the glorious weather and possibly the best known of the Headline acts, brought curious locals flocking, see what I did there, to Livestock.  Pony rides, activity tents and the big red comedy bus appeared to be doing a roaring trade and families possibly outnumbered the 'first-festival' teens of the night before.  

Janie and I managed to spend much of our time mooching in the VIP area - which almost works.  It really is more of a backstage pass as there is no view of the stage from VIP, but hey ho - I'm a sucker for a flushing toilet and a sofa.  It's also a great place to chat with bands and pick up gossip.  There were a number of rumours floating around about Livestock, many asserting, for example,  that Livestock had been running for a number of years in different guises and different locations, but whilst we were told that we were welcome to interview Ben Leeke, our genial host "Although no comparisons to Michael Eavis please" he was unsurprisingly a pretty busy man this weekend.  

Saturday was almost perfect, although11am-11pm is a long day for a festival and a few more stalls and activities,  there are only so many hats a dance happy girl can buy, would have helped to break the day up a little.  But there was an unashamedly good time vibe which was infectious, aided and abetted by some remarkably good unsigned bands (but more of them later)  Scouting for Girls finished off Saturday night in their own endearingly rowdy way.  Talking of scouting, Ben took to the stage at the end of the night, looking for all the world like a benevolent scout master himself, letting us know that we could watch a movie before bed. Janie and I didn't hang around - we managed to hitch a lift back to Upton as the cab firm were now refusing to come down and pick us up.  Upton Cabs don't give it to you - as Bruno Mars almost said.     

We were in two minds about returning to the festival on Sunday     It is not really designed for people who don't camp yet come to all three days, there was nowhere to retreat to for a snooze and we had already eaten every type of food at least once, but lured we were by the Hoosiers and our seemingly insatiable curiosity.  Sunday was all mellowness and pretty quiet and low key. Rumour had it that the silent disco of the night before, was anything but :) and I feel that there was a sense of fragility amongst many of the revellers.   We didn't arrive until after 6pm having lost ourselves in the view of the Severn and the Sunday papers.  So we actually missed most of the unsigned live acts which really are the strength of Livestock.

However we were present when lightening struck the ground a mile away from the festival site and Ben, in full on mother hen, gathered us to him.  Hay bales, blankets and picnic chairs were hauled into the safety of the main stage, it was a charmingly British, cosy way to end the festival.

The Hoosiers, came on to 'Take me to Church' presumably a nod to anyone who thought they had come to see Hozier, and closed the festival in a riot of glitter and enthusiasm. 

We enjoyed Livestock, there was a naivety about the whole festival which meant that your bags weren't searched on the way in, although my smuggling peaked at a packed of chocolate buttons and a diet coke and similarly it attracted a crowd of first time festival goers declaring that they would NEVER remove their bands.  

The range of bands were truly impressive, and we found a few real diamonds.  The food was good and local and well priced.  The site was kept impeccably clean and it felt all fresh and shiny and new

I began by saying that the festival was somewhat embryonic - I stand by it, but I think that we may well just have been at the birth of something special.